“Take it off for a tip—unless you’re too afraid,” he taunted, sparking a tense diner confrontation that ultimately revealed a hidden commander and exposed the powerful man who had been trying to erase her from existence.

The man tilted his head, amused. “Or what?”

Mara exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that wasn’t about calming down but about deciding something. Her gaze moved past him for just a fraction of a second, toward the far corner of the diner, where a man sat alone with a large, alert dog curled at his feet. The dog’s ears were up, its attention fixed, not on the men causing the scene but on Mara herself, as if waiting for something.

The man beside the dog—mid-thirties, maybe, with the kind of stillness that didn’t come from relaxation but from control—met her glance and didn’t look away. There was recognition there, not of her face, maybe, but of the situation, of the way tension had settled into the room.

Then Mara looked back at the man holding her apron.

“I’m giving you a chance to walk out of here,” she said.